I Robot MovieCan Robots Really Take Over?

The I Robot Movie is inspired by the I Robot book from Isaac Asimov.

The book is a collection of short stories about a society where advanced
humanoid robots were made possible, but they are safely restricted by
the 3 laws: to protect humans, obey to humans and, if possible, protect
themselves.

But these laws often have unpredictable
consequences, and it happens again in I Robot Movie where robots seem to
go out of control. In addition to this mess, a robot seems to have no
care for the 3 laws, and even pretend to have a name (Sonny) and dreams.

Can Robots Turn Against Humans in the Real World?

The truth is that robots are already used in war to kill people.
While they are still remote controlled by pilots, more and more
processing is done onboard, and they are allowed more and more freedom
to take the final decision of shooting by themselves.

Why are they
given more freedom like that? Because they can process information much
faster than humans and react much faster, which is sometimes crucial
during the mission.

Can robots go crazy in the real world?

While they are given some freedom on the technical decisions during
the mission, they still have mission orders and no part in the strategy.
Their decisions are limited to target recognition (is it really the
target in sight?) and timing (when is the best time to shoot?).

Right
now, statistical machines are sometimes helping doctors with
diagnostics. You feed them with the symptoms, and they guess using past
statistics what may be the cause. IBM plans to do this with its
supercomputer Watson.

We could imagine that in the future, we
would have computer advisors for military strategies, a little like the
Viki super-computer in the I Robot Movie. The idea of such
super-computer advisors are coming from some of Isaac Asimov original
novels, where they are taking care of the management of the economoy.

Let's compare more the technology from the movie and reality.

I Robot Movie Technology: the Reality-Check

I wonder if IBM Watson is not even bigger than Viki...

The movie has a lot of great ideas, and is very well inspired. Let's
see their brand new robots like Sonny: they are powered with artificial muscles
that look pretty much like what Festo is doing. It's also been
concluded recently that the usual electric motors are not good enough to
make legged robots. So they were definitely well advised when they
created the robots for the movie.

For a super-computer like Viki,
the only exaggeration is the super holographic screen. The rest is
pretty much believable, and super-computers like Watson from IBM may
reach this stage in the following decades.

I also liked the idea
of the robots having an "up-link" to the mother company, as they call it
in the I Robot Movie. I even think they are a little late on that,
since cloud computing for robots is already becoming
increasingly popular. It makes perfect sense that robotics companies
will keep their robot connected to gather data and enable upgrades.

Look at all these muscles

I loved the robotic arm of Will Smith, though you don't really see
the mechanics. It does make for some good scenes. Today, some
experimental Bionic Arms are being tested, but they are
not ready for you. It might take another decade or two. Exoskeletons
are being deployed already (wearable robots), so hopefully bionic arms
that replace missing limbs will be available some day.

Driver-less cars,
or robotic cars, are being made today by Google and many other research
labs. Some companies like Volkswagen have started commercializing
cruise control options that let you relax on the high-way. It won't be
long before we think people like Detective Snooper who drive manually
are actually crazy.

Finally the least likely technology is maybe
the humanoid robots and their artificial intelligence. There is great
debate right now about humanoid robots, their use, the space they take
and their price: why having a humanoid robot at home when a team of
cheap specialized robots can do it easier and stay nearly invisible?
With up to 9 billion people on Earth in the 21st century, do you really
want to add a billion humanoids? Plus, the autonomy they show in the
movie is way more advanced than anything we have.